TOW #1: How to Say Nothing in 500 Words

What if the way you wrote any paper for the past sixteen or seventeen years was all a hoax? What if the techniques of writing that you trusted to be indisputably important to a sound writing piece were rather harmful thus opening the many doors of possibility to giving you a D on a paper? Well, Paul Roberts, in his “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words” describes some common techniques that most juvenile writers use to either enhance their papers or get the assignment done, and how to refrain from using these errors. Intended towards inexperienced writers, Roberts tells the readers that every student is expected to make a dull subject interesting and it is the writer’s job to entice the reader into his writing with the style and wording. He informs the students to avoid the obvious: to refrain from general content and wordiness, to take the less usual side that would be refreshing for the teachers who have been reading the cliched essays for the past two hours. As an expert in linguistics, Roberts uses effective rhetorical devices such as coherence and didactic. Roberts does not conceal his points about how to be a better writer by using obscure and ambiguous wording; he clearly outlines his main points solely focusing on the idea to teach jejune writers about how to write more effectively. Under the bolded heading of his main points, the writer elaborates his points with explanations and real or unreal examples. For instance, under the heading, Call a Fool a Fool, he demonstrates how people euphemise the word “dead”, to avoid such harsh word choice, but only ends up making oneself sound incompetent. Roberts accomplished his purpose by clearly instructing what to avoid and what to carry out to readers. Although some juvenile writers might be tempted to argue against Roberts because he denounces the way they wrote for their lifetime, but Roberts’s coherent objective and analysis makes it difficult to argue against.